There are a number of things to consider when creating slides for a presentation, especially when designing with accessibility in mind.
Templates
While there are lots of lovely, elaborate templates available, accessibility guidelines encourage keeping things simple.
If you are using PowerPoint, Microsoft has several accessible templates in the PowerPoint design templates gallery. Use the search bar and type ‘Accessible template’ to find a range of potential templates.
Colour and Contrast
Choose colour schemes with readability and accessibility in mind. Prioritise combinations that allow for high contrast between text and background. This allows your slides to be accessible to as many people as possible, including those with visual impairments.
There are several free online tools to help you develop accessible and visually appealing colour schemes:
- Coolors – Can help you create pleasing colour combinations: https://coolors.co/
- WebAIM Contrast Checker – test colour combinations for contrast compliance: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
- Venngage Accessible Colour Palette Generator – Design palettes that meet accessibility standards: https://venngage.com/tools/accessible-color-palette-generator
Text and fonts
Use a minimum font size of 20ppt to ensure readability. While this limits the amount of text that can be placed per slide, it encourages you to focus on key points only.
Choose sans serif fonts (which do not have the small decorative strokes at the ends of letters) such as Arial and Calibri as they are more readable than serif fonts such as Times New Roman.
Accessible fonts include: Arial, Helvetica, Futura, Myriad Pro, Calibri, Century Gothic, Franklin Gothic Book, Lucida Sans, Tahoma, Verdana
Fonts to avoid include: Times New Roman, Garamond, Baskerville, Cambria, Brush Script, Edwardian Script, Segoe Script, Papyrus, Harrington, Bauhaus 93
Additional Accessibility tips
Consider adding alt text (descriptive text that serves as an alternative to images and other non-text content) to images to assist those who use screen readers.
Harvard University has best practices and examples to help you create useful alt text: https://accessibility.huit.harvard.edu/describe-content-images
Best practice encourages assigning every slide a unique title. This helps screen reader users navigate and understand where they are in the presentation.